Right, this is the nerdiest thing we’ve posted in a while, but it IS “Tron”-related and smacks of the awesome…

The cool cats at lifehacker have thrown together a full guide as to how to take your standard notebook bag and transform it into a cool, “Tron”-esque thing with more than just a little sewing and soldering required.

The cool glowing effect is made possible due to the use of electro-luminescent (EL) wire and a tucked-away small battery pack. If you’re not familiar with EL wire, it’s a relatively cheap, flexible product that glows when a current passes through it. Thankfully, the end result looks pretty neat, meaning you won’t look like this guy.

The videos below show working examples from Ladyada and Alan Yates, who have made a Tron-inspired laptop-bag and backpack respectively.

Give the guide a gander, see what you can do with it and if you get a cool result, please let us know so we can make you famous.

The Unofficial iPhone Dev Team has advanced to its next project, posting a beta of redsn0w, its jailbreaking utility for iOS devices. Per iPodNN, the release supports untethered operation in iOS 4.2.1, that is, jailbreaking without having to stay connected to a computer via USB during the process. So far only the iPad, the iPhone 4 and the fourth-generation iPod touch devices are compatible.

The Dev Team warns that because things can potentially go “very wrong,” the software is aimed strictly at beta testers. People are asked to back up any essential content, and avoid the beta entirely if they use the ultrasn0w unlock. The software also requires a separate install of usbmuxd, and that Cydia have v4.2b3 SHSH blobs saved.

Owing to sandbox problems, Bluetooth support is temporarily unavailable. redsn0w 0.9.7b3 is a Mac-only download; the untethered mode can be used by selecting the Jailbreak Monte option. Testers are urged to do a fresh restore before installation in order to rule out variables.

If you’re feeling brave, let too know how it went in the comments.

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The tree’s lit, the presents are waiting to be unwrapped and the friends and relatives are en route for brunch later in the day. With that in mind, Merry Christmas and happy holidays from the crew here at O’Grady’s PowerPage, who will be taking the day off to savor the egg nog, cookies and iOS apps before returning on December 27th to bring you the latest in mobile news coverage for the Mac.

If you have a spiffy holiday story, please share it with us in the comments.

Per MacGeneration, Apple plans to include some rudimentary integration between its upcoming Mac App Store and the next maintenance release of Mac OS X 10.6, according to discoveries made a MacGeneration forum member.

Mac OS X 10.6.6, due for release in the next few weeks, will offer users the option of searching the Mac App Store for applications when it runs into an unsupported file type for which no application has previously been assigned.

The Mac App Store — due to launch on January 6th — would return applications capable of opening the specific file.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you have any thoughts about the Mac App Store, please let us know.

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While embedding an antenna in the external body of an iPhone may not have been Apple’s best idea, hiding it behind the logo may be a little better thought out.

Per PatentlyApple, that’s the idea Apple wrote up in a patent application dated June 17th, 2009, back before we knew antennas and gates could be so wickedly conjoined.

This idea was also used for iMacs, which also have antennas peering through an apple-shaped hole to avoid any reception issues caused by an aluminum chassis. It looks to be a good solution, but not exactly a novel one. The idea was also incorporated in a similar 2003 patent from Dell also called “Logo Antenna,” the big difference being that while Apple’s logo forms a window for the antenna the logo in Dell’s patent actually is the antenna.

Per BlueSci, researchers from the University of Hong Kong managed to place 90GB of data into the DNA of a colony of 18 E.coli. The data can also be encrypted by site-specific genetic recombination; a purely natural process that means data can be jumbled up.

Given that there are apparently around 10 million cells in a gram of bacteria, and each cell can hold approximately 5GB, this could lead to some pretty enormous storage capacities. Plus, different types of cells have stronger radioresistance than others, meaning the cells (and data in them) would survive a nuclear blast.

However, the discovery still has a lot of work to go, as retrieving the data is “tedious and expensive” for now. That, and DNA cells can mutate, which could destroy some of the data stored. Due to these threats, the testing has only been done on genetically modified bacteria and limited to copyright information data storing only.

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There’s a downside to something being successful: eventually people come to rely on you.

Per Macworld, Skype is continuing to slowly recover after an outage caused by problems with its peer-to-peer interconnection system.

The latest estimates say that 10 million users are now online after a crash on Wednesday according to a blog post.

However, users able to get online can still expect that some features may not work as reliably as expected. For example, online statuses may be slow to update, and instant messages might not be delivered as quickly as they are normally, the blog post said.

Also, it’s currently impossible for Skype to predict when all users will be able to sign in and start making calls again, the company said. Around midday European time Thursday, almost 5 million users were back online, Skype said, which is around 30% of the number it would expect to see at that time of the day.

Skype at one point also disabled new downloads of its software, according to a Twitter message from a company spokesman.

Skype’s initial description of the problem said many of the “supernodes” that act as directories for Skype users to find one another were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of the Skype client.

“Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal,” the company blog post said.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you were affected by this crash, please let us know.

The second-generation iPad may have a smaller bezel, a flat back panel and a wide-range speaker, a new unverified report claims.

Per Japanese Mac blog MacOtakara, an “anonymous Chinese source” has stated that the LCD screen on the next-generation iPad will stay the same size, while the new tablet will be 3mm smaller, reportedly measuring 239mm by 186mm. The current iPad, which measures 242.8 mm by 189.7 mm, was criticized for its wide bezel when it was first unveiled in January.

Apple will reportedly change the back of the new iPad to be “flat like an iPod touch,” which would also resolve criticisms that the iPad’s curved back is impractical. According to the report, the Ambient Light Sensor has been moved to the “upper center of the rear panel” and has a new 3mm slim hole.

The rumor also suggested that a slot on the bottom of the device, which was spotted in early case designs, is actually a “large wide-ranged speaker unit covered with metal mesh.”

Production of the new iPad has allegedly already begun, with a tentative shipping date of mid to late January, the report noted. Recent reports have suggested that Foxconn will begin shipping the iPad 2 to Apple in January or February. Apple could ramp up production capacity of the iPad to as much as 6 million per month.

A second rumor that the next iPad will have two cameras–a front camera for FaceTime and a rear camera equipped for recording video, was labeled as “unreliable information” by the blog.

As nifty looking as the 11″ MacBook Air is, you may feel a need to jazz it up with a modification reminiscent of your school days. Per The Daily What, Beyondthetech is currently selling a skin that will transform the outer lid of your MacBook Air into a traditional mottled black and white composition notebook.

Installation instructions are available on the Beyondthetech web site and the MacBook Air skin is a free download while the custom ZAGGSkin will set you back US$60 plus shipping and taxes.